From Agrabah to Ankh Morpork
by LadyJafaria
Summary: The adventures of Jafar in Ankh Morpork after some inept wizards summon him. Discworld and Aladdin crossover, obviously.
1. A Disturbance in the Library

This is a story about the multiverse and what happens when you play with it. It is a story about Ankh-Morpork; wizards who don't exactly, well, wizz; and why by the time That Wossname is through with you you'll wish you were only dealing with something from the Dungeon Dimensions.

There are tales of universes just like the Disc but different. There are also tales of wizards who've gone to them. The problem isn't going. It's getting back. But that's only one problem. The real problem is when something goes wahooni-shaped and instead of going to a parallel universe you bring a little bit of that universe to you. This is sometimes referred to as the mountain coming to the prophet. It is better described as the mountain coming and squashing him flat.

And so when our story begins we find wizard Ponder Stibbons out cold by the Library entrance. Archchancellor Ridcully, never one to think without acting (although occasionally the other way round) threw a bucket of water at him. Unfortunately not just the contents; the bucket as well. However, this did wake the wizard up.

"I say! What was that all about?"

"You looked like you'd fainted."

"You'd faint too. There's an intruder in the library. Tall, dressed in black."

"Probably just an Assassin. The students can defend themselves."

"Assassins don't wear bloody great honking turbans like they're the Seriph of Al Khali!" Ponder exclaimed.

"You do have a point there. Maybe he's an emissary." The two wizards walked into the library, where they were greeted by a confused-looking orangutan.

"Seen anyone in here?" asked Ridcully.

"Oook," said the Librarian.

"He said a couple of undergraduates, but they ran away when this—this wossname—from another universe showed up," said a scraggly-looking wizard at a library desk.

"Thank you Rincewind. If you were half as good at wizardry as you were at languages..."

"I still wouldn't be very good at wizardry," Rincewind said dejectedly.

"All interdimensional personages in this library show yourselves! By order of the Archchancellor!" shouted Ridcully. In most libraries, it's considered impolite to shout. Ever since the Unseen University library got a book about the Band with Rocks In, and realized that the book played the band's songs constantly, it's considered bloody good sense to shout.

After Ridcully was finished shouting, a tall, dark and sinister man stepped out from behind a pillar. True to Ponder's word, he was indeed wearing a turban.

"You there! Are you Klatchian?" asked Ponder.

"Considering I do not know what 'Klatchian' is, I highly doubt it," the man said.

"Not know where Klatch is! You must really be from another universe! What is your name?"

"Jafar."

"Sounds Klatchian. You up on your Klatchian, Rincewind?"

"He's not speaking it," the squirrel-like wizard responded.

"I'm from the City of Agrabah."

"Well, at least it's not a Dungeon Dimension," said Ridcully cheerfully.

"I don't trust him. He looks like a...He's a...Is he?"

"Rincewind, you're pathetic."

"Oooook!" said the Librarian.

"He SAID, Ask this bloke if he's a grand vizier anywhere," said Rincewind. Rincewind didn't like grand viziers. They tended to be far too interested in things like scheming and stealing Archchancellor's hats and throwing Rincewind into snake pits. That last was especially troublesome.

"I am Agrabah's Grand Vizier," Jafar announced.

"A-ha! You can tell them, you know," said Rincewind to the other wizards.

"Tell us what?" asked Jafar.

"You know, tell them. Spot them! And I'm telling you two, if he really is a grand vizier, you'll wish he was only something from a Dungeon Dimension."

"Doesn't look that bad. Looks a bit like the Patrician if you ask me." This is true, as far as it went. The newcomer did indeed wear black robes, and did have a pointy face with the kind of expression that seemed to say, "Do not let me detain you." However, Lord Vetinari was not partial to foreign headgear, and Ridcully was sure his lordship's beard was not quite so...twisted.

"Who is the Patrician?" asked Jafar.

"The Patrician rules Ankh-Morpork."

"I see. And where does one go to see this...Patrician?"

"You don't just go and see him! You've got to have an appointment and all of that!" said Rincewind. "Personally I'm afraid of him."

"That's not a high recommendation. Tell me, are you afraid of cats?"

"No, not really."

"Funny. I thought a rodent would be. Now, can one of you three tell me how to find the Patrician?"

"Won't do you any good. We're the wizards. We're the ones who can send you back."

"It wouldn't do to be sent back without paying a visit to your ruler."

"Well, just leave U.U. then. You'll be sure to find the palace."

"You don't get out much, do you?" asked Jafar, swishing out of the Library.

"You know what, Ponder?"

"What, Ridcully?"

"I honestly think that man's a match for Vetinari."

_Author's Note: I, as the author, do not think Jafar is a match for Vetinari. As is made evident in following chapters. However, I do think Ridcully would want to believe that a member of the fraternity of mages could get one over on the civil authority. Wizards are, after all, wizards, even if they are tall, dark and sinister Klatchian ones._


	2. Fabricati Diem, PVNC

On the steps of Unseen University, the sorcerer Jafar could see the unwashed [in many cases literally] masses of Ankh-Morpork. He could also see various Guildhouses and, in the case of the Alchemists, ex-Guildhouses. He could even see the river Ankh, the one river upon which walking is not exactly a miracle. He did not, however, see the small woman who crept up behind him. At least, not until she walked round to his front and said, "Thieves Guild, is an official pickpocketing. Here's your receipt."

"A receipt? For being stolen from? This is absurd! In Agrabah we cut people's hands off for stealing!"

"Thieves Guild is perfectly legal sir. So's the Assassins Guild. You might want to watch yourself."

"I just got here! Nobody's going to want me assassinated!"

"Sorry sir. Thought you were one of those Klatchian dignitaries. I'll just be going then."

Jafar shook his head. Unveiled wenches legally stealing money? He really had to have a word with this Patrician. As he walked down a crowded street, he saw a woman in a ragged uniform with a tarnished breastplate. Her badge said AMCW. FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC. Jafar walked up to her. She said, "I'm City Watch. What's your problem?"

"I'd like to report a theft," he said.

"See that?" said the woman, pointing to the receipt. "That shows me you've got nothing to complain about. I suggest you'd better go before someone decides to do something nastier to you."

"So thievery is actually legal here? I thought she was lying."

"Thievery's legal. Strictly regulated too. Now if it were an unlicensed thief, then you'd have a complaint, but as it is I can't help you."

"Angua! There you are!" said a short, simian-looking watchman as he approached. "This man isn't bothering you is he? I've heard stories about Klatchians I have. Keep your filthy foreign mitts off Angua. She's Ankh-Morpork's finest, she is."

"Oh really?" said Jafar, critically eying Angua.

"It's an expression we use for the Watch," Angua said hastily. "He wasn't describing me personally. Nobby, he wasn't bothering me at all. He was just trying to report a licensed thief."

"I've still heard stories about Klatchians."

"Would either of you know where the Patrician lives?" asked Jafar.

"Not offhand, but Carrot does." Angua pointed to a tall, redheaded watchman patrolling nearby, and waved to him. He walked over.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to measure your turban sir. There's a law against The Wearynge of Dangerously Large Headgear, sir. It's right here in my book."

"Carrot, that law hasn't been enforced in years," said Angua. "Just tell him where the Patrician lives."

"But he's Wearynge Dangerously Large Headgear! It might hurt the Patrician!"

"I have no intention of butting heads with your darling Patrician!" snarled Jafar. "Does everyone in the city act as dumb as you and your monkey over there?"

"I'm no monkey! I've got papers what prove I'm a human bean! Signed by the Patrician hisself!" said Nobby.

"I asked, is everyone in the city a fool, Carrot?"

"It's Captain Carrot. I could have you fined for Notte Usynge a Watchman's Proper Title, sir."

"Another law that hasn't been enforced in years, Carrot, you've really got a talent for it," said Angua. She turned to Jafar. "And not everyone's a fool. Commander Vimes isn't a fool. His wife isn't a fool, although she's a bit touched about dragons. And the Patrician? The Patrician is brilliant. Not a likable man, but smarter than anyone else I know of."

"Sounds just like me," said Jafar, smiling. He tried to walk away.

It turned out Captain Carrot was holding him.

"Are you determined to find some reason to arrest him, Carrot?" asked Angua.

"I've heard stories about Klatchians, I have," Nobby muttered darkly.

"He is Wrongefully Impersonatynge a Foreign High Dignitary!" announced Carrot. "And that law is still good. Why just last week we had someone up for claiming he was the King of Lancre!"

"Carrot?"

"WHAT, Angua?"

"He was."

"May I kindly inform you that I am a foreign high dignitary?" asked Jafar.

"The Grand Vizier of Al-Khali looks nothing like you!" said Carrot. "…No, wait, he sort of does. You fellows all look alike. Wait, sir, no, don't look at me like that, I didn't mean people from your country, I meant your profession and…Angua?"

Angua refused to comment, leaving it to a dwarf. "Yer not in the mines, kid. Quit diggin' yerself deeper."

"I am the Grand Vizier of Agrabah."

"Face it, Carrot. You can't arrest him. I don't think he's even Klatchian."

"I'm not Klatchian! I don't even know where Klatchia is! I'm from another universe!"

"Those do crop up from time to time. I've heard stories about them," said Nobby. Jafar looked at the awkward watchman disdainfully, then walked off.


	3. Meanwhile, At Unseen University

"So, Ridcully," the Bursar asked at elevenses, "heard some undergraduates were playing around with the fabric of the multiverse again. Don't you tell them they need to save that for thesis work?" Nearby wizarding students looked at each other as if to say, Not me! I wasn't in the Library conjuring up anything, I swear.

"We might have gotten something from the Dungeon Dimensions!" said the one girl student in attendance, a fiery young wizard named Esk. She was holding the wizardly staff that had belonged to her father.

"I'm afraid we got worse," said Rincewind. "We got a—a Wossname—what'd he say-Well anyways we got a Wossname."

"Jafar," whispered Ponder loudly.

"Yes. A Jafar. And he went to see the Patrician."

"And you didn't stop him? Granny Weatherwax would've," said Esk. "You people don't know headology."

"We didn't know how to stop him."

"You're wizards!" she said.

"Bloody well wizz, we know, we know. But we couldn't decide how. I mean, what to wizz with. We didn't know if our spells would work. And he was carrying a staff."

"With a knob on the end?" asked Esk.

"No, a carving of a cobra," said Rincewind. "I remember that. I don't like snakes. Specially not Grand Viziers and snakes."

"What if he does something to the Patrician?" asked the Lecturer in Ancient Runes.

"Nobody does anything to the Patrician!"

"Not anything the Patrician doesn't want done anyway."

"Still. Interdimensional entities are dangerous. There's no telling what he'll do. Students, classes are cancelled today. Ponder, Rincewind, come with me. We're going to go to the Patrician before he does."

"Why are you taking me? I'm not a very good wizard you know."

"Yes, but you're very good at running away. You could give us instructions."

"Brave Sir Rincewind, he bravely ran away," muttered a wizard. Rincewind looked at said wizard unpleasantly. It was really all he could do, being about as magical as the average rock.


	4. In Which Jafar Is Sidetracked A Bit

_Author's Note: I wrote this before Unseen Academicals and therefore did not know that the Patrician's palace is, in fact, not as far from Unseen University as I would have liked it to be for purposes of this chapter._

Finding the Patrician's palace was not easy. Wouldn't it have been sensible, Jafar thought, to put it near Unseen University at least? He saw, of all things, a wizard walking nearby.

"Where are you going?"

"To the Mended Drum. You wouldn't want to come. Fights break out and nobody likes Klatchians."

"For the last time, I'm not Klatchian! Is this place on the way to the Patrician?"

"I suppose it is," said the wizard.

"Good. Are there any chances of you, er, wizz-ing us there? My slippers are about to wear out."

"No, we'll have to walk."

"I haven't seen a single piece of magic! I'd magic us there myself, but I don't know where it is."

"You're a wizard?"

"I'm a powerful sorcerer where I come from," Jafar said.

"Nobody likes braggarts either."

Jafar and the wizard walked to the tavern. It seemed quiet, until you realized that there was only one fight going on and, since it was between dwarfs, was being fought quite viciously almost entirely under a table. The wizard ordered a drink. Jafar concentrated on a woman in a red dress on the other end of the bar.

"Stop staring at her," whispered the wizard.

"I can't resist a woman in red," said Jafar with a lascivious smile.

"Look here! You're a wizard, right? And here, wizards lose their power for days if they so much as look at a woman in that way!" Jafar rolled his eyes, then magicked the wizard's glass full again.

"That's not playing by the rules is it," said the wizard. Meanwhile, the woman sidled up to Jafar.

"I've heard stories about Klatchians," she purred.

"That's all very well and good, but I'm not one."

"I've seen her before!" said the wizard. "Look here, she's in the Guild of Seamstresses!"

"Splendid. She can repair my slippers."

"Do you even know what the Guild of Seamstresses IS?" said the wizard, this time making quote marks in the air as he said the word "seamstresses." As he was doing this, the seamstress was trying to sit on Jafar's lap and, strangely enough, succeeding. Jafar looked at the wizard and said, "Now it's perfectly clear, thank you."

"What's perfectly clear?"

"He thought you were really, you know, a real seamstress."

"Oh! Different Guild entirely! If you want to know the truth, I can't even sew."

Jafar raised an eyebrow. Legal thieving, monkeys in the Watch, and "seamstresses" who can't sew. What a strange city.

"You know," said the seamstress, "you look a bit like the Patrician."

"Is this a good thing?"

"Oh, we're all soft on the Patrician, even our Guild head. Oh, I have such awful manners. Didn't even introduce myself. I'm Catalina."

"Jafar."

"Oh, what a name. So exotic."

"You can't get sidetracked by a seamstress!" said the wizard, who looked a bit perturbed. "You have to go! You have official business!"

"Now, now, let's not be jealous." The wizard stormed out, seething.

"Wizards. Wizards are strange people," said Catalina.

"I'm a sorcerer myself."

"A sourcerer? Really?" She wrote it down. Jafar crossed the U out.

"Oh. That. That's pretty much the same as a wizard, isn't it? If you're a wizard, why are you sitting on a chair in the Mended Drum with a seamstress on your lap?"

"I've never heard of a chastity vow for wizards."

"Oh, you Klatchians," said Catalina. Before Jafar could protest for the umpteenth time that he was not Klatchian, the seamstress kissed him on the cheek. "You know, I could just tear those robes right off you."

"I don't have any Ankh-Morpork money."

"Ah, so you have caught on about the Seamstresses. Well, it's my day off, so to speak, but just because I'm not going to collect money for it doesn't mean I can't do it."

"Really, I don't have time. I have to go." Remembering what Catalina had said about the Patrician, Jafar didn't reveal his destination.

"Can you come back? I'll be waiting for you."

"Whatever." He left. What was that all about, he thought. Accosted by a seamstress? Iago, I get the feeling we're not in Agrabah anymore...


	5. The Vizier and the Patrician

_Author's Note: Jafar's last name in this chapter is completely non-canon. Stole it from the Arabian Nights. I've got the same lack of knowledge about what his real last name is as anyone else does._

At the entrance to the Patrician's palace was a very large rock. Jafar, quite out of breath by this point, attempted to sit down on it, at which point it moved, causing Jafar to fall over. The rock spoke.

"Bad manners sit on troll. Who raised you?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you were a rock."

"Sergeant Detritus AM City Watch at your service sir. Dis is der palace."

"Why thank you. I wouldn't have figured that out on my own." The sarcasm sailed right over the troll's head.

"Now, I want to see the Patrician."

"Dat not smart."

"Coming from you? How ironic," said Jafar, walking past Detritus and into the palace. The wizards who'd found him at the University were standing anxiously in the hallway.

"Trolls. Look like rocks, with brains to match," said Jafar. "You're wizards! Why are you standing around? Wizz!"

"The clerk refused us an appointment with the Patrician!" said Ponder. "You don't just wizz in a situation like that!"

Jafar walked up to the clerk, a brunette woman in a dark suit. "I'd like to schedule an appointment with the Patrician."

"His lordship is busy sir," said the clerk without looking up. She didn't notice Jafar sliding her notebook off the counter and into his hands.

"Let me rephrase that. If you do not schedule me for an appointment with him, I will inform your coworkers and superiors that you have scribbled 'I love Lord Vetinari' in a corner of your notebook." The woman gasped.

"Wizards don't use such tactics!" said Ridcully.

"Grand viziers do," said Rincewind. "He's viziering already. It's worse than I thought."

"No, you can't run away yet, Rincewind," said Ridcully.

"I want you all to know, I'm not really soft on the Patrician," said the clerk. "This odious foreigner is making it up."

"Oh really?" asked Jafar, flipping the notebook open. "And am I making up 'This is getting quite out of hand. I live for those moments when I might pass him in the hallway or be sent to his office by the chief clerk. Every waking moment is consumed by thoughts of him. I can't bear this any longer. I may have to quit. Get out of my head, Vetinari!'"

"Now that's playing dirty foot-the-ball, sir," said Ridcully. "Everyone knows you don't read a girl's diary. I read my friend Esme's diary once. I spent the next few days on a lily pad, if you know what I mean."

"All right! All right! You can see his lordship!" the clerk, now red as a beet, declared. "I'll need a name."

"Jafar."

"And a last name?"

"Albarmaki."

"All right. Follow me." She led him away, leaving behind some very confused wizards.

"He didn't even wizz!"

"Witches use headology, not wizards!"

"Grand viziers too. They're as good as witches."

"So are we going to stand here or get the Watch before Jafar makes Vetinari kabobs?"

"I vote for running away."

"Rincewind, you're a wimp."

"But, it's him, and the Patrician, at the same time! I say we leave. The Patrician can take care of himself."

"It is our duty as wizards!"

"Why didn't we send him back when he was in our library?" asked Ponder.

"Because he was asking to see the Patrician," said Ridcully.

"Why did we let him?"

"I don't know. Look, we'll wait here an hour and if nobody's come out of the office we storm it."

"A visitor, your lordship," said the clerk, escorting Jafar into the Patrician's office.

"Interesting. Was this scheduled?"

"In a way, yes," said Jafar, smiling twistedly.

"I'll just be going now, sir," said the clerk as she backed out.

"What is this meeting regarding?"

"The fact that your do-nothing wizards brought me here, your do-nothing watchmen let people steal from me, and your do-nothing clerk wouldn't let me see you until I blackmailed her."

"Take a seat. You show promise." Jafar sat down across from His Lordship.

"Now," said the Patrician, steepling his fingers, "explain your situation."

"I live in Agrabah. I believe it would be best described as in another universe. Which means I am not Klatchian."

"I never believed you were."

"Then you're the only one. What happened this morning was, I was just having some coffee in my chamber in the palace, when I'm pulled into the Unseen University library. Three wizardry students look at me questioningly before running off."

"No explanation of what they were trying to do then?"

"From what they'd left behind, I would say they were trying to perform the Rite of AshkEnte."

"I've never heard of it failing so spectacularly."

"You seem to have a low class of wizard here."

"They're mostly harmless."

"What am I to call you?"

"Most people call me 'sir' or 'your lordship.'"

"I happen to be the grand vizier of Agrabah, and refuse to defer to a foreign leader."

"I happen to be the owner of a very large dungeon. Do we have an understanding?"

"Nobody has ever threatened to throw me in a dungeon before."

"That surprises me. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't say, but it's Jafar Albarmaki, and 'your Excellency' to the citizens of Agrabah."

"We shall get nowhere arguing about titles, Jafar. You may call me Havelock."

"I may. Then again, I may also call you 'smug foreign leader I'm about to hypnotize into telling those wizards to send me back.'"

"If I were to hypnotize someone, I would not make a point of telling them beforehand," said Lord Vetinari. "Out of curiosity, why didn't you ask the wizards to send you back while you were at Unseen University?"

"I wanted to see how the city was run."

"I'm rather proud of it," said the Patrician.

"Rather proud of it? Within five minutes of leaving Unseen University I was robbed!"

"Interesting. Drumknott, make a note that I expect foreign coinage the next time the Thieves Guild pays taxes. _Very _foreign coinage." A nearby clerk adjusted his glasses and wrote it down obediently.

"Does everyone obey you so unconditionally?"

"They prefer it to the alternative." He laughed dryly. "The alternative involves the scorpion pit."

"I think your city is the most pathetic hive of scum I've ever seen! And I've seen _Cairo_!"

"Yes, Jafar, it is."

"You freely admit that?" asked the sorcerer, looking a bit puzzled.

"My city works. It may not be a thing of beauty, and it may not be full of the most upstanding citizens you could hope for, but it works. And that is the entire point."

"And you don't oppress the populace?"

"I oppress those elements of the populace that need oppressing," said Vetinari.

"Does anyone ever call you a tyrant?" asked Jafar.

"Never more than once," said the Patrician. "I'm sorry, but I must ask you to leave. I have work to do. Go tell the wizards to send you back."

When Jafar went back to the hallway, no wizards were present. He looked at the clerk and asked, "Where did the wizards go?"

"I told the wizards they couldn't have an appointment with his lordship until Hogswatchnight. They said, 'But we don't want an appointment on Hogswatchnight! That's when our biggest dinner is!' and they left."

"Surely his lordship has time free between now and Hogswatchnight?" said Jafar, pointing at a calendar that indicated Hogswatchnight was in three months.

"Of course he does," snapped the clerk. "I just wanted to get rid of those pathetic wizards."

"You could have been nicer to them."

"I was nice to them. I didn't steal Ridcully's notebooks and talk about his secret love, not that he'd have one because he's a wizard."

"No hard feelings about that one, okay?"

"No hard feelings? No hard feelings? You pull that again and you'd better have three good reasons for me not to sic the Assassins Guild on you."

"Reason number one, my magic works here and it's a lot more powerful than those pathetic wizards. Reason number two, if you haven't noticed, I still have your notebook. Reason number three, I have another appointment with the Patrician tomorrow."

"You do? But nobody ever sees him two days in a row."

"I said, I have another appointment with the Patrician tomorrow. Write that down."

"You mean his lordship doesn't know yet?"

"His lordship will know when I want him to."

"You definitely remind me of him."

"Oh, I'm much worse."

"How can I write down your appointment if you have my notebook?" asked the woman. Jafar gave her the notebook back, and she scribbled in it.

"If I may be so presumptuous as to ask, why haven't the wizards sent you back yet?"

"Because the wizards are fools who can't do anything right. I'm sending myself back, once I understand this city."

"Sending yourself back?"

"I'm sure the library has a way to do it."

"So go to the library."

"Not so soon, my dear. You see, I'm intrigued by the way your city works, and I want your precious Vetinari to explain it to me. Fully. Until that happens, Ankh-Morpork will just have to put up with me." Jafar swished out of the room and went to find lodging in an inn near the palace.


	6. Embarking on a Tour of the City

The next morning, Jafar was woken up by someone pounding on the door of his room.

"There's someone here what says you've got an appointment with his lordship!"

"It's eight o'clock in the morning!"

"Well, you've got an appointment with his lordship at eight-thirty!"

"Is his lordship insane?" mumbled Jafar, getting out of bed. Bad enough that he'd had to sleep in his robes, now this.

"City that never sleeps, with a ruler to match, your excellency," said the voice on the other side of the door. After putting on his turban, Jafar left the inn. The troll he'd sat on the previous day was on the doorstep.

"Oh, it's you. Why in the world would the Patrician give me an appointment at eight-thirty?"

"Because he can, sir."

"Are you the one escorting me to the palace?"

"What's es-cort-ing mean?"

"Bringing me."

"Yes, dat." Jafar rolled his eyes and followed the troll back to the palace. Inside, the lady clerk greeted him again.

"To think I dropped out of the Assassins Guild school for this," she said, leading Jafar to the Patrician's office again. This time there was a small dog sitting in the chair opposite the Patrician's desk.

"Do sit down, Jafar," said Lord Vetinari without looking up.

"I can't. There's a dog." This got the Patrician's attention and he looked at the small terrier.

"Ah, Wuffles. My devoted companion. Come here Wuffles." The dog jumped down.

"What kind of dog is a terrier named Wuffles for a fearsome leader such as yourself?"

"What kind of pet is a parrot for the most powerful sorcerer in the world?"

"How do you know I have a parrot?"

"Either you brought a parrot in, or someone else's squawking mass of red feathers is sitting on my windowsill," said Lord Vetinari.

"Iago! Come here, Iago," said Jafar. "I knew the wizards brought both of us."

"Yeah, and it took me so long to get out of that library I thought I was gonna die in there. Why didn't you come find me?"

"The idea of the Patrician fascinated me."

"Oh, and what about the idea of finding your loyal minion, huh?"

"Calm yourself Iago."

"Whyever would you want something that babbles incoherently? I have the citizenry for that."

Iago looked at Vetinari angrily. "Next thing you're gonna say is Polly wanna cracker, right?"

"Dear bird, you look overfed already."

"You hear that Jafar? You gonna let me take that from this ninny?"

"Do you want us both thrown in the scorpion pit?" hissed Jafar. He usually was on the opposite end of that sort of thing.

"I don't like scorpions. They're icky."

"Then shut up!" said Jafar to his parrot. To the Patrician, he said, "Please forgive Iago. He is not the most well-mannered bird under ideal conditions."

"Which these ain't!" whined the bird.

"I wouldn't say that, Iago," said Vetinari. "Many of my citizens believe Ankh-Morpork's conditions are ideal indeed."

"You've got some freaky citizens then," said Iago.

"Oh, this city was far worse before I was in charge. If I do say so myself."

"You'll have to show me around then."

"Oh, yes, certainly, I've all the time in the world to do something like that."

Jafar picked up a large pile of paperwork off the Patrician's desk and threw it into the fireplace. "Now you do," he said.

"You are certainly good at getting what you want, aren't you?"

"I pride myself on it."

"It'll be the easiest thing in the world getting all those guilds to file their reports again, you know."

"Whoa, this creep is more sarcastic than you!" said Iago the parrot. Jafar held Iago's beak shut with one hand and with the other maneuvered the snake staff over the Patrician's desk. Lord Vetinari looked at it with mild interest before pushing it away.

"You really must leave and let me work on the few reports you've left me." Jafar looked indignant. How dare this upstart not allow me to hypnotize him, he thought. But there are other methods. Quickly, he picked up the small dog and walked over to the window with it.

"Try anything and the guards will take you on an abbreviated tour of the city ending in the dungeon, Jafar," said Vetinari without looking up.

"Even I'm not heartless enough to throw your dog out the window! I just wanted to see what your reaction would be." He was, in fact, heartless enough to throw the dog out the window. He simply wasn't _brainless_ enough to do it.

"Are you forgetting that I am the one in power here?"

"Whyever would I forget something like that?"

"Jafar, come on, let's just go find those second-rate conjurers and get ourselves back to Agrabah!" said Iago [whose beak was no longer clamped shut, of course, because even a sorcerer can't hold a parrot, a snake staff and a dog all at the same time]. Jafar looked at his parrot disdainfully and told him, "When I say we shall return to Agrabah, we shall return to Agrabah."

Vetinari looked at Jafar as if he were surprised his office wasn't empty yet. He shook his head, and slowly rose from his seat. "I suppose you leave me no choice, Jafar Albarmaki."

"I told ya! He's gonna throw us in the scorpion pit! I'm not going! I'm a bird, I'm flying out of here!"

"The bird stays." As Vetinari pronounced this, he opened the office door and stepped out. "Follow me."

"You're not putting me in the dungeon?"

"Once you've seen the city, you'll think the dungeon is safe. But first, I have someone to introduce you to." The Patrician led Jafar to a door at the other end of the palace and opened it. Jafar looked down the long, dimly lit passage and tried going in before Vetinari grabbed him.

"Do _exactly_ as I do," the ruler said, "no matter how stupid it looks. That's crucial." Jafar stared at Vetinari dumbfoundedly as he began skipping down the corridor, watching very carefully which stones he stood on. Then the sorcerer carefully entered the corridor and followed Vetinari exactly. The corridor ended in a large room full of contraptions.

"Good afternoon, your lordship," a man with messy hair and glasses said as he tinkered with one of the gadgets.

"Here we have Ankh-Morpork's principal inventor, Leonard of Quirm," announced Lord Vetinari. "Leonard, this is the visiting dignitary Jafar of Agrabah. What are you working on?"

"I'm repairing the Really Fast Coffee Machine. Would either of you care for some coffee?"

"Not all over us, Leonard," said Vetinari. "Make it the old-fashioned way. May I see your sketches?"

"Why is this man imprisoned here?" asked Jafar.

"Shh! He doesn't think of it as imprisonment," whispered the Patrician. "He's confined here because he has the sort of brilliant mind which invents engines of destruction but doesn't think anyone will actually ever use them!"

"I see. A bit naive, is he?"

"Calling Leonard of Quirm naive is like calling your bird mildly irritating. See, this here is a sketch of a machine that, in the wrong hands, could destroy Ankh-Morpork." Jafar slid the sketch away from Vetinari, examined it, and tried to roll it up and keep it before Leonard wandered over with the coffee, causing Jafar to place the drawing back on the table and face Leonard with his best attempt at an innocent look. Needless to say, this failed to convince the Patrician, but the inventor seemed convinced.

"Oh, that. That's a Highly Destructive Swamp-Dragon-Powered Rock-Throwing Device. Only works when you've got well-fed swamp dragons providing the firepower."

"Ah. Well. We haven't any swamp dragons in Agrabah."

"You wanted to build one?"

"Agrabah has many enemies," said Jafar. "We could do with a Highly Destructive Rock-Throwing Device. What kind of name is that anyway?"

"That's the kind of name Leonard always comes up with," said Vetinari. "For example, that"—he pointed to a gameboard covered in letter tiles—"is the Make Words With Tiles That Have All Been Mixed Up Game."

"I think we ought to leave this poor madman to his work," said Jafar, sweeping out of the room before he realized that he had to walk carefully. A net came down from the ceiling and didn't completely ensnare him.

"Oh, you stepped on that tile," said the Patrician as he exited. "Some are much worse." Jafar threw the net off and followed the Patrician's lead back out of the corridor. Vetinari took a small checklist out of his pocket and checked off "Leonard of Quirm."

"Wait, when did you make that?"

"While I was listening to you whining about being taken around the city. We're to see the Watch house, the Assassins' Guild, the Thieves' Guild, and if they still have one the Alchemists' Guild, before ending at Unseen University. I think they're practicing for foot-the-ball this afternoon. My carriage is in the courtyard. Your parrot should already be inside it if my clerks followed their instructions properly."

"What about the Seamstresses' Guild?"

"You are just the type to ask that. If you wanted me to take you there, you should have thrown their paperwork in my fireplace." Jafar shook his head. If it weren't so infuriating to be constantly outsmarted, he thought, he could learn a few things from this Patrician.


	7. In Which Disreputable Guilds Appear

Chapter 7. In Which Disreputable Guilds Appear

As the coach rattled down the bumpy streets of Ankh-Morpork, Jafar began to feel a bit silly. He could already be back in Agrabah, if he hadn't gotten crackpot ideas about seeing the city, and now he'd been introduced to madman inventors, legal thieves, watchmen who looked like monkeys, and a seamstress who couldn't have fixed his slippers if she tried. And at the very moment he was in a black coach with a black coat of arms on the side, heading for a building that had a dead body suspended from the roof.

"The Assassins' Guild?" asked the sorcerer.

"Thieves' Guild. I assume that poor fellow was an unlicensed thief. Rest assured, when we're near the Assassins' Guild, I'll know," the Patrician told him.

The coach stopped and a footman opened the door. Vetinari stepped out and walked over to the guild door, then rang the doorbell. Nobody opened the door. Vetinari waited calmly until Jafar walked over and started knocking on the door with his staff.

A young thief finally opened the door.

"Oh, it's you, your lordship," said the girl, addressing Vetinari as if his traveling companion wasn't even there.

"Wouldn't have kept you waiting if I'd known. Oh, who's the Klatchian?"

"This is Jafar of Agrabah. Unusual circumstances have caused him to be touring the city with me today."

Jafar was seething. Wherever this Klatchia was, he thought, why couldn't it have been _their_ no-good wizards that summoned me? But explaining where he was really from to a lowly thief would be futile.

"Well, don't bring him in. I've heard stories about Klatchians."

"I expect we steal things?" asked Jafar innocently. Or at least, not malevolently, which is about as close to innocent as our dimension-traveling vizier gets.

"Yes, you'll steal anything," said the girl.

"Wouldn't do to have a thief in the thieves' guild, would it?" said Jafar with a thin-lipped smile.

"No-Oh! I see. Sirs, right this way." She led them into the main room of the building, then walked off and came back with another thief, a well-dressed older thief with glasses and a clipboard.

"This is a thief?" asked Jafar. "It looks like one of your clerks!"

"I'm the Thieves' Guild accountant. I don't do much active thieving these days."

"Except when you file taxes," said Vetinari.

"Is that what you're here about? And who's that?"

"This," said Vetinari, indicating Jafar, "is a foreign dignitary who, unfortunately for both of us, caused me to take him on a tour of the city."

"Because it would have been so difficult to send someone else to the guilds for paperwork," said Jafar. "You have some motive for doing this."

"Keeping a dangerous mad sorcerer from destroying my city on a whim."

"Dangerous mad sorcerer? Where?" asked Jafar, looking around.

"You are insufferable."

"Explain to me how the thieves' guild works. There's...well, shall we say, a gathering place of sorts...for the thieves of Agrabah, but it's certainly not legal."

"Citizens pay us a sum of money in exchange for not being robbed. If they can't pay, then, well, we rob them."

"So...either way, thieves get people's money?" asked Jafar.

"That's the point of thieves, innit?" asked the girl.

"I don't believe the accountant is quite finished," Vetinari said. The accountant was, in fact, spluttering indignantly about being interrupted.

"As I was going to say, in addition to only robbing citizens on schedule, we also punish unlicensed thieves severely."

"How civic-minded."

"Nah, we just hate competition."

"In Agrabah anyone caught stealing has their hand cut off."

"What if they steal with their other hand?"

"Then that hand is cut off as well."

"And then what if they steal with their feets?" the girl asked.

"I suppose we'd cut off their feet, but we've never gotten that far."

"So, once you've got these thieves with no hands, what do you do with them? They can't exactly be productive citizens afterwards."

"Oh, the Agrabanians are generally kind enough to throw a few coins into a beggar's cup. I never do. It only encourages them."

"But if you hadn't cut off their hands, then they wouldn't be beggars in the first place."

"No, they'd be thieves. It works, anyway, we only have to cut a thief's hand off about once every few months."

"Exactly what do you do with the hands? Sell them to Igors?"

"What are Igors?"

"I guess that's a no, then."

"I wouldn't know what we do with them! I'm not even there most of the time. I have more important matters of state to attend to than where a thief's hands go when he's no longer attached to them!"

"Matters of state? You're in charge in this Agrabah place? Can't say I think much of your ruling. Now if you took a page from his Lordship's book, you wouldn't have to cut off any hands."

"No, because thieves would be running rampant and my citizenry would hate me too much to let me stay in power any longer!"

"From what I've seen, your citizenry has few reasons to like you as it is," Vetinari commented dryly. He picked up some paperwork from the accountant and looked it over.

"Still a thief deep down, I see. Unless these are merely errors and not deliberate attempts to scam the city out of money she deserves?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, they're merely errors, sir. I shall fix them immediately."

"But...you wanted to save that money for new thieves' tools!" said the young thief.

"Quiet, girl! The Patrician is being ironical at me, I have to fix the errors."

"I'm impressed," said Jafar.

"You are?" asked the accountant. "By our unusual way of dealing with thieves?"

"No, by him. You know, Havelock, it's been fifteen years since I was impressed with anything."

"Are you going to try our ways in Agrabah?"

"I'm not sure Agrabah is ready for it, but if I could, I would. ...You know Arabic? I've rarely heard foreigners pronounce our city's name so flawlessly."

"I can't say what 'Arabic' is, but I have some familiarity with Klatchian."

"Fascinating! It's as if I've landed in some kind of parallel dimension, isn't it? Your Klatchia must be my world's Arabia."

"There are some who would call this a parallel universe, yes," said Lord Vetinari. "Then again, considering the fellows we have before us today, there are some who would call the Disc a parasite universe as well. I trust you're through here? I certainly am. It appears the alchemists have repaired their guild hall...again. Would you like to see them?"

"My world has alchemy as well. I practiced it myself, briefly."

"Briefly?"

"I learned the easiest technique to prevent an explosion."

"I'm sure the alchemists would love to hear _that_."

"I am sure they _wouldn't_, because it consists of _doing no alchemy whatsoever_."

"Indeed. I am sorry for taking up so much of your time," he said to the thieves. "We shall be on our way."

"Not to the Alchemists' Guild. I would like to see the Assassins."

"Very well. The Assassins' Guild school is my _alma mater_. Granted, the fellows there had a tendency of calling me 'Dog-botherer,' but I learned several of the things I know there."

"Dog-botherer?"

"Oh, I am sorry. My name is rather close to a Morporkian term for…" and here he said the Klatchian word for "animal doctor," "and on the whole I suppose it could have been worse than Dog-_botherer_."

Jafar tried not to laugh, both because Vetinari no doubt found it entirely unamusing and because Jafar had been known to cause small children to run away screaming and young ladies of delicate sensibilities to faint in terror at his laugh. Admittedly, Ankh-Morpork seemed like a place where even the children would have boot knives and a young lady of delicate sensibilities was probably visiting from Quirm, but you never knew.

Regardless, they soon reached the Assassins' Guild. A young man let them in, and Jafar noticed that while he had the same Ankh-Morpork accent as that Watchman who looked like an ape, he also looked like someone who would fit in in Agrabah.

"Is this young man an _actual_ Klatchian?" asked Jafar of Lord Vetinari.

"Half!" the young man piped up. "The name's Waleed! But what do you mean an actual Klatchian? Are you pretending to be one?"

"No," said Lord Vetinari. "He is from an alternate universe where there coincidentally happens to be a place very much like Klatch. I shall have to see your Guild leader. Regrettably, Jafar here thought that my fireplace was in need of feeding."

"What's that got to do with the price of tea in Hunghung?"

"In need of feeding _with Guild paperwork_, Waleed. I need to pick up copies."

"And you didn't send another fellow around to do it? It's not every day you see Vetinari in the Assassins' Guild! Well, actually, sir, it is, we've got a framed portrait of you in the Great Hall, you're holding Wuffles and everything. But I meant like in person."

"I know what you meant, Waleed."

They were ushered to the office of the head of the guild; while Waleed went inside the other two stayed outside it.

"Now, really, I am entirely too busy to hand over copies of those forms to just _anybody,_ Waleed," said a voice from inside.

"But it's Lord Vetinari, sir! And a Grand Vizier!"

"How did he _know_?" asked Jafar.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Vetinari, but Jafar knew sarcasm when he heard it.

"Show them in," said the other person in the office, and the young Actual Klatchian did so.

"A Grand Vizier, he says. I was intrigued," said the head Assassin, who was sitting behind a desk. Behind him, on the wall, was a large crest of arms bearing the motto NIL MORTIFI SINE LUCRE.

"What does that motto mean, Havelock?" Jafar asked.

"It means 'No Killing Without Money.' The Assassins' Guild have rules."

"I take it this is another one of your brilliant ideas to control crime in the city?"

"My ideas have become brilliant in the ride between the Thieves and the Assassins?"

Jafar was not merely intending to flatter Vetinari, and had actually arrived at a new opinion of his philosophy. He never really _could_ explain what happened, but just because he did not have it did not mean there was no explanation.

By coming to Ankh-Morpork, he had become two different people. In one leg of the Trousers of Time, Jafar had never been summoned to Ankh-Morpork at all, and he kept on scheming after the throne until, one day, he had it, and then, just as quickly, didn't. But that is the Jafar everyone knows about.

The Jafar who _did_ come to Ankh-Morpork was already becoming a slightly different Jafar. Not only that, he would not return to the same Agrabah. It all went a bit quantum, and Ponder Stibbons would surely have an explanation for it, that would quite possibly involve butterflies, cats in boxes, and other things that on the surface had very little to do with botched Rites of Ashk-Ente.

The head of the Assassins nodded his head, and asked again, "Are you _actually_ a Grand Vizier? Anyone can wear a turban and a pointy little beard and black robes. If you put a turban on Vetinari _he'd_ pass for a Grand Vizier." Jafar looked at Vetinari again. Now that he thought about it, it was true.

"Rest assured, Lord Downey, that if there was a school for viziers, Jafar could have _founded_ it."

"So why is he here? Trying to enroll his son into the Assassins' Guild?"

"I have no children that I am aware of, Lord Downey," said Jafar. "I am here on a tour of the city, after arriving suddenly from another universe entirely. The wizards made a mistake."

"Waleed!" said Lord Downey, ringing a small bell. Waleed popped his head back into the office.

"What is it, sir?"

"Show Jafar around, will you? I have business with Lord Vetinari."

"Right away, sir," said Waleed, leading Jafar down the corridor. He showed Jafar to the dining hall, the armory, and the archery range.

"Fine place you have here. In Agrabah, we had our fair share of assassins, but they would never dream of having an institution like this. I rather admire your Lord Vetinari for setting this up."

"Oh, he didn't set it up at all. The Assassins' Guild was already in business before he was in charge. Didn't he tell you he was educated here?"

"Yes, he did, but I am sure that the current relationship between the Assassins' Guild and the rest of the civil leadership has been _improved_ by Vetinari."

"Oh, yes, the Guild has done well by him. It's rather odd, I mean, Downey and Vetinari never liked each other at school. It's an open secret. Sometimes Downey still calls Vetinari 'Dog-botherer' to other Assassin graduates. But they can act civilly to each other when they have to, and the Guild has absolutely done well by him. All the Guilds have. Mrs. Palm says it's much safer to walk the streets, and she would know."

Jafar looked puzzled.

"Mrs. Palm is the leader of the Seamstresses' Guild."

"Oh. I had a rather amusing run-in with a Seamstress yesterday. I asked her to fix my slippers."

Waleed laughed. "My father was an immigrant from Klatch, and he made very nearly the same mistake the first time he met an Ankh-Morpork Seamstress. Anyway, let's go back to the dining hall. The Assassins' Guild always hires some of the best cooks. I've even gotten the current one to do up some Klatchian food."

After a trip to the dining hall, where Waleed and Jafar did in fact find Klatchian food, they returned to the office. Vetinari was ready to leave, holding the proper paperwork and looking fairly annoyed by Lord Downey.

"This visit has given me much to think about. Is there anyone else we need to see before I can return to Unseen University and, hopefully, to Agrabah?"

"Well, I believe there is still the city watch. Vimes will surely have copies of everything I need, however it may take quite some time for him to find them on his desk."

"My own guards are fairly inefficient. I shall have to ask Vimes for advice."

"Just the other day you were criticizing my city, and now you are contemplating asking my City Watch Commander for advice?"

"I have had a change of mind, which is not to say of heart."

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. Jafar tried to match it, but failed. Regardless, they left the Guild, climbed back into the carriage, and headed towards the City Watch House in Pseudopolis Yard.

_Author's Note: Klatchian and Arabic probably would NOT be mutually understandable, but given that there are phrases in Latatian that are understandable if you know real-world Latin (Morituri Nolumus Mori does, in fact, mean "we who are about to die do not want to die") I'm going to also make Klatchian close enough to Arabic that Jafar can understand a word or phrase in it._


	8. The City Watch House and the University

Chapter 8. In Which Jafar Visits the Watch and Returns to the University

"Do not upset Commander Vimes," Lord Vetinari said as they arrived at the Watch House and got out of the carriage.

"Any particular ways I can avoid doing that?"

"Do not commit any crimes, including the ever-so-nebulous Wasting Watch Time. Of course, it is entirely possible that by coming here we are both Wasting Watch Time, but he cannot charge me with it, as I am the ruler of the city and Watch time is, therefore, at my disposal. And do not be excessively…aristocratic."

"You do realize that Grand Viziers are not aristocratic? You do not become Grand Vizier just because your father was. _My_ father was a rug merchant, and even if he _had_ been Grand Vizier I would have had to do something to merit having the position passed to me."

"Grand Viziers may not be, by definition, aristocratic. _You_, as an individual, have every aspect of the aristocratic personality that so annoys my Watch Commander. Try not to be too…_nobby_."

"Can't help it sir," said a man smoking outside the watch house. Somehow, despite the fact that smoking was clearly allowed in the place he was doing it, it seemed like he was sneaking. Jafar recognized him from that strange episode with the police woman.

"I was not talking to _you_, Corporal Nobbs," said Vetinari. "Please tell Vimes that I am here to see him."

Nobby put the cigarette out and walked inside. Shortly afterwards he came back out and said "Vimes doesn't want the other fellow in the Watch House."

"Is it because he thinks I'm Klatchian?"

"He says that just because you're Klatchian doesn't mean you can't be a nasty piece of work he doesn't want in his Watch House. No offense intended, sir."

"Tell him that the visiting Ambassador from Agrabah is very impressed with the way our city works, and that he is having trouble with his own city guards and would like tips from the finest Watch Commander on the Disc."

When Nobby came back out, he said "All right, you can come in. But hands out of pockets at all times and don't look so much like one of those buggers with the pointy turbans I forgot the fancy name for."

"Were those Vimes's words, Corporal Nobbs?"

"Are you calling me a liar?" asked Nobbs. Jafar and Vetinari exchanged a look that said _It would be like calling the ocean wet_, but decided to say nothing to Nobbs.

"Very well then."

In his office, the Commander of the Watch was eating a bacon sandwich and trying his best to look like he was doing his paperwork. Jafar recognized the look. He had seen it far too often (minus the sandwiches, of course) when inspecting his scriptorium. And, if he had to be completely honest with himself (which he didn't) he had given it to the Sultan a few times himself.

"So, what's the problem you have with your city guards?"

"They are not guarding my city."

"Don't play dumb Klatchian with me, sir. They only let the smart, sneaky ones be wossnames, don't they?"

"I believe the term you are searching for is Grand Vizier," said Jafar and Lord Vetinari simultaneously. They looked at each other with almost as much amazement as Vimes was looking at them.

"You're sending him back, right, your Lordship?" asked Vimes. "I mean, we don't need a Klatchian version of you. There's a Klatchian version of me, and that's frightening enough. I don't think Ankh-Morpork is big enough for two of you."

"I do not think _the Disc_ is," said Lord Vetinari. "That is to say, yes, I am sending him back."

"Technically, the wizards are sending me back, or I am sending myself back with the assistance of their library. Vetinari is merely _requiring_ me to go back. I think I could do quite well for myself in Ankh-Morpork, however."

"Don't flatter yourself," said the watch commander. "All right, you really want tips on making sure your city guards are doing the best they can? First off, take anyone who's willing to sign up. It's a tough job, and you're going to get a lot of misfits like Detritus and Nobby. Some of my best police work has been done with Nobby around." He didn't mention that said police work usually involved trying to figure out what Nobby had stolen now.

Vetinari raised an eyebrow, but Vimes kept going. "Now, you might be surprised to hear me saying to take every recruit. Especially you, your lordship. Even when you told me I had to take dwarfs and trolls, I managed to find the ones who didn't fit in, and it's done me nothing but good. But the reason you want to take on some oddballs is completely practical. It's not because they're better than anyone else. Most of the world is crap, and misfits aren't any exception. Some of them are a good deal worse. What you want to take them for is the fact that they stick around. The best loyalty comes from poor buggers who haven't got anyone else to be loyal _to_. I'd rather have a mediocre copper who's here all the time than a brilliant detective who's off every other day."

It was a novel strategy, but it had clearly worked in Ankh-Morpork. Jafar thought of the city guards of Agrabah. Not a misfit among them, and someone was always leaving for some reason or other. Getting married and opening a shop, joining the army for a better uniform and a chance to actually hit something once in a while, being fed up with falling off of ledges into manure piles while chasing a poor boy who stole a loaf of bread. The list was endless. Perhaps some Nobbies would be an _improvement_. He took a scrap of parchment out of his robe and wrote the suggestion on it.

"Second, clues are bloody useless. You want to know what's really useful in figuring out a mystery? Knowing your city. I can't say I like people much, but what people know has always been more useful to me than any so-called Clue. Use _that_ to figure out who done it, and then you can call the clues Evidence."

"I do have a question for you, Vimes. What, exactly, does a city guard _do_ in a city where theft and assassination are legal?"

"We deal with the unlicensed murders, the public disturbances, the tavern brawls…not the unlicensed thefts, the Thieves' Guild sorts those out…trust me, we are not short on work here."

"That is good to know. In my own city, I think it would be a bit too dangerous for us all if I legalized assassins, but I may be able to make some progress on thieves. And on the city guards, of course. I am sure your suggestions will help."

"I hope they will, but I really have to get back to work. Carrot wrote this report yesterday and I'm still trying to figure out the spelling."

"Then I will leave you to your work. As for you, Jafar, I am sure you are anxious to return to your own world?"

"I have not learned _everything_ about this city, but I do not think I could take the time away from Agrabah to do that. I have learned what I need to know. I believe I am ready to see the wizards now."

At Unseen University, on a large field, wizards were running about chasing something that made a sound like _gloing_.

"What is this?" asked Jafar.

"It is a game called 'foot-the-ball'. Rather silly, but the wizards have recently revived their team." He walked up to a wizard wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, borrowed a whistle from him, and blew it. All the wizards stopped playing and looked over at Vetinari.

"Oh, it's _you_, your Lordship," said Ridcully. Rincewind stuck his head out from behind the Archchancellor, but promptly went back to hiding when he found out Jafar was there as well.

"I believe that man had a traumatic experience with a Grand Vizier once," said Vetinari. "Regardless. Ridcully, can I trust you to get this fellow back where he came from safely?"

"How do I know you won't mess it up like the wizards who brought me here?"

"The wizards who brought you here were undergraduates! Hardly able to turn stones to frogs, let alone summon Death! I am the _Archchancellor_. There is no act of wizardry so great I cannot do it! If there were, then the wizard who _could_ do it would be the Archchancellor!"

"That's reassuring," said Jafar.

"And this is where I leave you," said Vetinari. He walked away and got back in his carriage. Before being led inside by Ridcully, Jafar waved goodbye to the departing Patrician.

"All right. Now, we aren't going to do what the stupid wizards did that brought you here. We're going to send you back to your world through a map. Do you have one?"

"As a matter of fact, I do carry a map of Agrabah with me." He pulled a rather tattered map out of his robe and laid it on a library desk. Ridcully raised his staff over his head, and Jafar was sucked into the map. Ridcully shook his head. _The world keeps getting stranger, even for wizards_, he thought.


	9. A Change of Strategy

Chapter 9. A Change Of Strategy

The ritual the wizards had performed worked. Jafar did, indeed, return to Agrabah. The wizards had even been courteous enough to make him reappear in his private chamber.

Teleporting was exhausting, and it was the middle of the night, but Jafar could not sleep. The city of Ankh-Morpork weighed heavily on his mind.

For some reason, he felt as if he had been ruling Agrabah all wrong.

Oh, of course, he wasn't nominally ruling Agrabah at all, but he felt as if he had been ruling Agrabah from behind the scenes all wrong. He looked out his window. This was not a city that worked. It was, he knew, his fault. All his scheming over genie lamps, all his resentment of Sultan Hamed…well, he wouldn't go so far as to regret that second one. And as he told Havelock Vetinari, he did not have a change of heart.

He did, however, have a change of mind. Trying to take over the city had occupied far too much of his time, and now he put that to the back of his mind. Perhaps, someday, it would be back at the front of his mind again, but if it was, he would make sure, before he did it, that the city worked. He would see a noted thief in the morning.

_In the morning_

Jafar left a note for Sultan Hamed that said he was conducting an urgent errand in the city. After putting on a plain gray robe with a hood, he left the palace and went to a seedy-looking coffee house in a poor district of Agrabah.

"A newcomer, eh? You should know that nobody comes here if all they want is coffee. Are you on the run, or looking for someone who is?"

"I am looking for a man named Kassim."

"Kassim? You are looking for _Kassim_? The King of Thieves?"

"The very same."

A hush fell over the bar. What manner of person was this, it seemed to say, who would walk into a notorious thieves' den and simply ask for the most notorious thief of all? The code of thieves would hardly allow this, would it? For all they knew, he could be an officer of the law in disguise, here to arrest Kassim. And wouldn't _that_ be a feather in anyone's turban.

"I'll bring him right out for you," said the man behind the bar.

The silence continued. If anything, there was even more of it. _Now_, it was saying that the innkeeper must be a fool, for turning Kassim over. If it so happened that the man in gray led the thief away to be behanded, the innkeeper would be punished as well.

After going up a set of stairs, the innkeeper came back down with a man wearing a blue cape over a black shirt and trousers. "This is Kassim. And you are?" he asked.

"My name is Jafar," said Jafar. After all, he couldn't be the only Jafar in Agrabah.

"Not a popular name in this part of town," remarked Kassim.

"I have been told so, yes. I have something of a business proposition for you, Kassim. You see, thieves are simply not organized enough."

"We try to be. This place is our best shot. But even then, it hardly works out. We're caught too often and punished too severely for it to work properly. If the Grand Vizier were here I would punch him in the face."

Jafar lowered the hood. "Have at me, then. But I assure you, you will want to hear what I have to say."

"You have something to say about thieves' organizing? Is it because you want us all to be in the same place so you can burn it down and save time?"

"No. I have had a change of strategy regarding how theft is dealt with in my city. You see, I have spent the past few days out of Agrabah, in the company of a rather strange…king." Though the details of how exactly one _became_ the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork had been omitted from any conversation (perhaps out of fear that Jafar would have tried it), one thing that both Vetinari and that scruffy Watch Commander had impressed upon him was that the Patrician was _Not A King_. It would have been hard to explain that to a common Agrabanian street thief, however, so Jafar settled for saying he was. "This king, you see, has set up a system where it is legal for thieves to operate, provided they pay their taxes like any other business and regulate theft."

"That is the strangest thing I have ever heard."

"I thought so as well. Now, if I institute a thieves' guild, I will not be dismantling the city watch. As a matter of fact, I have ideas for the city watch as well. Rest assured, they will not harm you once this is set up."

"Why should I trust you?" asked Kassim. "You are, by all accounts, a conniving tyrant."

"Why should I trust _you_? You are, by all accounts, an outrageous thief. As a matter of fact, I think you stole my money while we were talking here."

"I did."

"Keep it. Consider it my payment for this year. Now no other member of the Thieves' Guild can rob me. Write that down. If you need help creating licenses for the thieves, just come to me."

"I have a question. I have a wife and son in Agrabah who probably think I abandoned them. I am not even supposed to be in Agrabah."

"I will revoke the ban on you. As for your son, I have heard rumors of a seventeen-year-old boy causing my guards quite a bit of trouble. Would your son be seventeen at this time, and is he named Aladdin?"

"Why, yes, he would, and he is. What of his mother?"

"She must have died, though I do not know how. He believes he is an orphan. You will be reunited with him."

"You have a heart after all," said Kassim.

"No, I have a brain," Jafar said, "and it has just recently woken up to the fact that I need to establish strong leadership in the populace if Agrabah is to work as a city. You shall be the King of Thieves officially, as head of the Thieves' Guild, and your son, by your side, will be the Prince of Thieves."

"What are the guards going to do if thievery is legal?" asked Kassim.

"Do not worry about the guards, Kassim. They will still have work to do. Other crimes happen in the city."

"I wasn't _worried_ about the guards," said Kassim.

"Must feel unusual for you," said Jafar, and with that, he left. He wasn't quite sure how to put Vimes' suggestions into place with the city guards. Perhaps Razoul would know.

He found Razoul, coincidentally enough, chasing Aladdin. "Razoul! Let him go!" said Jafar. He lowered his hood, and Razoul and Aladdin both stopped in their tracks.

Jafar approached the young man. "I am not here to hurt you. In fact, I have a message from your father." He handed Aladdin directions to the inn where Kassim was staying. "He has important business to discuss with you."

"Why should I trust you? These could be directions to the dungeon, or to an ambush."

"I am not going to take so much trouble for a petty thief. I have to talk with Razoul. Come along, Razoul. We'll leave this street rat to his business."

_Razoul is not going to like this_, Jafar thought, _and I don't want to make him like it. I'm going to have to explain it so that he comes around on his own._

"What are you doing outside the palace?" asked Razoul.

"I had important business in the city."

"With common criminals, Sayeedi?"

"More like uncommon ones. Now, I have important business with you, in the City Watch barracks."

Razoul led Jafar to the barracks, which was fairly close to where he had been chasing Aladdin. "We have a rule that anyone who is not a Watchman is forbidden from entering the City Watch barracks armed."

"Well, that's quite all right then. I am unarmed." He hadn't taken his snake staff with him, since people in the city knew that Grand Vizier Jafar carried such an item. In fact, he had left the palace so rarely in recent years that more people would identify him from the fabled and unique staff than from his appearance alone. "As you can see, I have not taken the staff with me today."

"I was not referring to the staff, Sayeedi. You carry a dagger, do you not?"

"This is ridiculous. I have no intent to hurt you."

"Your intention doesn't matter. You must leave your dagger outside."

"It's Damascene steel with gold and rubies on the hilt. I may have just legalized thievery in the city, but I am not putting my own dagger within the reach of thieves."

"You may have done WHAT?" yelled Razoul.

"Oh, I hadn't meant to tell you so soon. I will give you all the details."

"Leave the dagger with Hakim. He won't walk off with it."

Jafar gave the dagger to a dour-looking thin guard standing outside the Watch House. "I know you've probably never handled anything so valuable," he said, "so please be careful."

The guard rolled his eyes as Jafar followed Razoul into the Watch House. _Wonder if I should have told him _about the exploding potion, Jafar thought.

"What's this about legalizing thieves, then?"

"There will always be thieves in the city," said Jafar, "and while we can catch them and punish them, that doesn't decrease thievery. _But_, if the thieves had to carry licenses and establish a quota for theft, there would be, overall, less theft in the city. I understand that you were robbed twice during Ramadan alone, captain?"

"Well, yes, I was. Imagine, robbing the Captain of the Guard! While he was weak from fasting!"

"Under my new system, that would not happen. Oh, someone may still rob you, but it would be recorded in the Thieves' Guild books and you'd be safe for a period of time, while the thieves would have to find someone else to rob."

"I don't see how this is supposed to improve the city."

"Did I mention there was a protection fee? You could simply _pay_ the Thieves' Guild and they would not rob you at all."

"But surely everyone who could afford it would pay the fee, and those who can't would have nothing worth stealing? So how could they still be called thieves?"

Jafar had not thought to ask that question of Vetinari. How _did_ the Thieves' Guild not regulate itself out of existence? Well, regardless of how _they_ did it, it was obvious that a way for _Jafar_ to do it was needed and quickly.

"I could make it so they would only be able to impose a fee on merchants' businesses. Shops wouldn't be robbed, unless, of course, they could not pay the fee, but individuals still would. And of course there's always the secondary use for thieves."

"What would that be?"

"Adventurers. Treasure-hunters. Agrabah has no treasure worthy of her greatness. Oh, there is money, there is always money, but money is dull." Jafar, being Grand Vizier, was of course quite wealthy, and there's nobody like a rich man to tell you how dull money is. But he genuinely found its physical form dull, preferring to spend it quickly for luxuries and leverage. It was power that interested and inspired him, and the power of money worked quite well for most of his purposes. "A daring thief could acquire some legendary artifact that would bring great fame and honor to the city!"

"That does make sense, Sayeedi, but I am not done with questions. Will this put the city guards out of work?"

"Of course not! After all, I do not intend to legalize any other crime, and it would be incredibly stupid and hurtful to the city for me to do so! You will still have to solve the murders, the assaults, the cases of fraud, conspiracy and sorcery…and, of course, with petty theft out of your hands I will expect you to be _more_ effective." Jafar never intended to make sorcery legal in Agrabah. The current prohibition decreased his competition while making the citizens think that despite any other faults he might have, he was protecting them from black magic. In a very warped sense, it was true. He was fully committed to protecting the Agrabanians from any black magic but his own.

He briefly wondered if Agrabah was ready for a Seamstresses' Guild, and decided it wasn't. That was quite a shame, for he knew a pair of cunning wenches, Delilah and Zaynab, who would be perfect leaders for it.

That ambition aside, he began detailing Vimes' advice to Razoul, who nodded frequently throughout the speech and finally said he would try these ideas out, though he was not sure they were any good.

"I cannot disobey my Grand Vizier," he said.

"It would be unwise, yes." Fascinating as Jafar had found the strange city of Ankh-Morpork, there was an undercurrent of insolence—though perhaps not full rebellion—among many of its people that he rather disliked.

The very next day, Kassim arrived at the palace with some Thieves' Guild recruits, including Aladdin, who had replaced his worn clothing with a new tunic and pair of trousers.

"Who are these people, Jafar?" asked Sultan Hamed.

"They are thieves, your Highness," Jafar replied.

"Thieves? What are they doing in the palace?"

"I have agreed to help them with a business matter. You see, the thieves of this city need organization. They need efficiency. They need to be a force for the good of Agrabah."

"Jafar, you have gone quite insane!"

"I _have_ made a bit of a provision that any thief caught on Palace grounds without requesting permission will still be sentenced to death on a charge of treason."

"But my people! How can thieves possibly improve their lives?"

"With my rules for a thieves' organization, thieves must keep a strict record of their victims, and businesses may pay for protection."

"I still think this idea is a bit out of the ordinary."

"Do you want Agrabah to be ordinary? Do you want Agrabah to be just another forgotten city, with mediocre people and common ideas? Or do you want Agrabah to be _great_?"

"I didn't think about it like that."

"That is why I am here, your Highness. Of course, before we can even think about greatness, Agrabah needs to work."

"It doesn't?"

"Not…not as perfectly as it could." He remembered the strange inventing fellow as well. Perhaps he could commission someone to draw some ingenious devices for the defense of the city.

"I applaud you for your innovation, but all the other cities will think we have lost our minds! Legalizing thieves!"

"We don't publicize that to the other cities, then. They will be bound to notice sooner or later that thieves in Agrabah are…different, but we certainly do not need to _tell_ them. Especially not before we're even sure the experiment will work."

"You have gone above and beyond your duties today, Jafar. I must reward you!" He took a scroll out of his robe and handed it over. "The court painter will paint a miniature of you when you hand him that!"

Jafar had hoped his reward would be a bit more tangible. Though a lover of art, he saw little reason to have paintings of himself about. He preferred metalwork and architecture. In fact, he dabbled in sketching buildings, and decided he would design and commission the new Thieves' Guild hall himself. It was the least he could do for the thieves, who were not exactly rich after the way he had previously treated them.

Regardless, he took the scroll and retired to his chamber. It had been a very busy day, but the city was finally on track to working.

Or to its greatest disaster since the fire of 837. It was hard to tell.

_Author's Note: 1. If you can't follow alternate continuities what are you doing reading Discworld in the first place? Yes, Jafar did still take over Agrabah…but in a different leg of the Trousers of Time. It all went a bit quantum. This is the Jafar that did NOT take over Agrabah. There'll be an epilogue that resolves the lamp situation and Aladdin/Jasmine. (That "prince of thieves" thing is a hint, by the way.) 2. "Sayeedi" means "my lord" and is usually translated "sir." It's not canon that people in Agrabah use it, but then again, it's not canon that people in Agrabah pronounce Jafar correctly, so I often want to make their Arabic just the tiniest bit more accurate when I can._


	10. Epilogue

Epilogue

It was three years later. Jafar had turned Agrabah around. The City Watch had taken on several more recruits, some of them unusual, but all of them dedicated to the city and shaping up to be good peacekeepers. Jafar's own reputation had changed significantly. Though the people still thought he was conniving and shifty, they realized that his obsession with ruling the city (something the people had always seen was there, even though the Sultan didn't) had faded somewhat. In fact, if he ever _was_ going to take over the city, it seemed as if he had postponed it until the city was better. People even came to Jafar for help. Their opinion seemed to be that he was a snake, but he was _their_ snake.

The Thieves' Guild prospered in Agrabah under the leadership of Kassim and Aladdin. In fact, the Thieves' Guild had gotten a reputation not only as a novel idea to decrease crime in the city, but as dashing adventurers who could steal _anything_. And so it was that Aladdin and Kassim set out to steal the genie lamp that Jafar had once been so interested in.

But as they were leaving the city, Aladdin and Kassim heard a fanfare.

"Make way! Make way! The Princess is on her way to the baths! None may see her!"

"Hide behind that pillar, son," said Kassim. Kassim managed to hide behind a pillar but Aladdin didn't. Instead, he ducked down to the ground, hoping the guards would not notice him or would at least think he was not looking at the Princess.

Instead, the Princess looked at him. She had opened the curtain of the chair slightly so that she could see out. Rumor had it that the Princess longed to get out of the palace and see the city for herself, but all she could ever manage was to sneak a peek out of her chair when being carried to the baths.

"Guards, who is that?" she asked.

"I believe it's Aladdin, one of the Thieves' Guild leaders."

"Thief! Where are you going, that you do not obey our heralds?"

"I am so very sorry, Princess," said Aladdin. "My father and I were on our way out of the city to search for the genie's lamp in the Cave of Wonders. I could not find anything to hide behind, so I ducked in hopes you would not notice me."

"Do you think I will punish you?" the Princess asked.

"…I am slightly afraid of that, yes," said Aladdin.

"Do not be. I will be on my way, and you can be off to steal the lamp." She winked at him and continued on her way.

"What just happened?" asked Aladdin.

"I think the Princess just flirted with you," said Kassim. "Come on, let's go get that lamp."

While they were searching for the lamp, the Princess returned to the palace.

"How are you, Princess?" asked Jafar when she entered the throne room.

"Well, thank you," she said. "I met Aladdin, of the Thieves' Guild. He said he was looking for a genie lamp."

"I have discussed the lamp with his father Kassim. Including the fact that it would be quite unintelligent to actually look for it."

"You have to send them a message and tell them not to do it!"

"I am considering that. The city would be worse off for the loss of those two Thieves." Jafar went over to his parrot's perch and told it, "Find Kassim and tell him not to go looking for the lamp."

Three days later, to the shock of everyone, Kassim and Aladdin returned to Agrabah and showed up in the palace the day Jafar was holding court (usually, he accompanied the Sultan, but on this day the Sultan was ill). Aladdin was holding the lamp.

"When I told my name to the Cave of Wonders, it let me in!" exclaimed Aladdin.

"Your parrot did find me and tell me not to look for the lamp," said Kassim, "but by the time it reached me, Aladdin was already in the Cave of Wonders."

"I only warned you away because I believed it would be too dangerous, and the city cannot afford to lose you. Incidentally, Princess Jasmine seems quite taken with you, Aladdin. We would be prepared to accept you as a suitor for her hand."

"But…only a Prince can marry a Princess," said Aladdin.

"You are the Prince of Thieves," said Jafar.

"Oh, come on! What kind of convenient loophole is this?" asked Aladdin.

"Of course, if you do not _want_ to court the Princess, I will gladly remove your title."

"I had always thought _you_ were trying to court her," said Kassim.

"She has made it quite clear that she will have me exiled if I try. Powerful though I am, I cannot go against the Sultan."

He clapped his hands and a woman servant rushed over. "Fetch me the Princess."

When the Princess entered the throne room with a light blue scarf over her hair, the first person she noticed was Aladdin.

"Hello again, brave young thief," she said. "Did you find the magic lamp?"

"Yes. I believe it will bring great prosperity to Agrabah." He was right. He used two wishes and freed the Genie, but even though the Genie was free, the lamp remained on display in a special chamber of the palace and people from near and far traveled to see it and hear the story, bringing fame to Agrabah and adding money to its thriving economy.

"Your father is still very worried about you, your Highness," Jafar told the princess. He had, of course, talked the Sultan into removing the time limit for the Princess to be married, after the girl had run away some time ago, but the Sultan was still determined to see his daughter marry a Prince before he died. _Well_, Jafar thought, _he's about to have his wish come true_.

"Oh, not that again! I have not liked any prince who came to Agrabah, and he knows that!"

"May I present…the prince of Thieves?" Jafar said, gesturing to Aladdin.

"I do believe Aladdin is an intelligent young man and good for the city," said the Princess, "and I would certainly not mind his courting me, but you have to convince Father."

"That I will."

Jafar was genuinely surprised by the Princess; she had grown from a rebellious, reckless girl into a young woman whose strong will was tempered by reason. She had decided to learn what she could about ruling the city, even though she could not leave the Palace. He would do all in his power to make sure the Prince of Thieves would be allowed to court her. After all, was the Thieves' Guild not Jafar's crowning achievement? He had lifted Kassim and Aladdin from the status of outlaws to that of civic leaders and heroes, and now, he would go one better. He would make them royalty. Having a Prince who was grateful to him, who knew exactly what could happen if the Grand Vizier were ever displeased with him…oh, yes, that _was_ ideal. Especially alongside a Princess who had learned everything she knew about ruling the city from him.

A few days later, the courtship of Aladdin and Jasmine was announced to the whole city. As Jafar sat in the balcony with Sultan Hamed, he remembered the strange otherworldly journey that had, in a way, made all this possible. Over three years, he had learned it was far better to be vizier of a working city than sultan of a non-working one.

_Although_, he thought, _I could always try being sultan of a working city_.


End file.
